Container Corporation of India hosted a conference call on May 20, 2022. In the conference call the company was represented by V Kalyanarama, CMD.

Key takeaways of the call

Originating volume for Q4FY22 stood at 617619 TEUs [EXIM is about 534436 TEUs; Domestic 113253 TEUs].

In FY22 added 24 new rakes to the fleet.   Overall the company currently has 21 high capacity rakes with pay load carrying capacity of 80 tonnes this increase the capability of increasing double staking.

Expect 12-20% growth in both top-line and PAT in FY23. Expect about 25% growth in domestic and 10-12% growth in EXIM.   

Seeing strong growth in domestic and asset utilisation has gone up and this momentum is to continue in FY23.     In domestic segment the company currently   handles about 12 million tonnes and in next 3 years the company expect to handle 12 million tonnes of bulk cement alone. 

Effective May 1, 2022, the IR has withdrawn the rebate on empty and laden containers.  So the resultant increase in haulage charges have been passed on to the customers.  Thus there will be no impact on the profitability of the company.

LLF – Against a FY22 LLF guidance of about Rs 450 crore, the company ended FY22 with a LLF cost of Rs 465 crore and this includes some provisions.

For FY23, the company expects the total throughput to touch 5 million TEUs [domestic volume handled to increase to 1 million (a growth of about 25%) and EXIM volume to see an incremental volume of about 0.5-0.8 million] from about 4 million plus in FY22. Khatuas ICD to reach a volume throughput of about 1 million TEUs in FY23.   

Of planned 270 rakes to be added in 4 years about 246 rakes are to be added and the company have added only 24 rakes in FY22.

Volumes increased by 3 times due to discounts on empty running (50% offered by IR).  This has overall positive impact of Rs 80 crore.   

Slight change in pricing strategy in FY22. The company has made terminals more attractive. 27% vs 31.1% in FY22.  Made terminals more attractive

If DFC is connected upto Dadri then the rail coefficient of Mundra port will go up to 35% from current 27.4%. The rail coefficient of Pipavav was 60%.

Market share in key ports are JNPT 76.4%, Mundra 46% (up from 43.5% in FY21) , Pipavav 52% (up from 49.8% in FY21). 

Planned capex for FY23 is Rs 620 crore.  However the company planned to incur a capex of Rs 8000-10000 crore in next 3 years and this will largely be on infrastructure, rolling stock, containers and equipments.  This will be funded through internal accruals. But the company has to raise debt in case of long term lease of land from IR, the cost of which is not part of this investment plan of Rs 8000-10000 crore.

Double stacking in FY22 was 3757 trains up from 2579 trains in FY21.